


if you love me, say you love me

by stefonzolesky



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: F/M, Trans Female Character, Trans Male Character, andy deserves the world, i tried my hardest, it's like slightly canon compliant but I didn't feel like fact-checking a lot so it's probably not, oh well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-17
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-30 21:29:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12117585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stefonzolesky/pseuds/stefonzolesky
Summary: Andy looks at April like she’s all the stars in the sky.





	if you love me, say you love me

Andy looks at April like she’s all the stars in the sky. 

When they first met, he didn’t know what to think of her. She was young, she was moody, and she gave him a glare that pierced through his chest. 

He called her a boy, she called him an asshole. That was the end of that conversation, and he didn’t ask any questions. He knew well enough anyways.

“I don’t know what you see in her,” She told him one day, when his gaze was trained on Ann. He shrugged. 

“She’s… She’s nice. She’s good, and nice.” 

_ And easy. Simple _ , lingered in the air, unspoken. April huffed softly. 

When Andy looked at April, sometimes his eyes hurt. It was like staring at the sun. Beautiful, but she could burn you. She threw her coffee stirrer at him and told him to fuck off.

He laughed it off and looked for Ann again. Ann was nice. She was good, and nice. And easy. Simple.

April stood up and walked away. It didn’t register to him that something might be off.

Maybe good, and nice, and easy, and simple wasn’t what he wanted. He realized that later on, when April shoved his shoulder, a small smile tugging at the corners of her lips -- she bit it back, because when has April Ludgate been known to smile?

“I think I like you,” He told her, and April’s face darkened. Andy realized right then that maybe, just maybe, he shouldn’t have said that _. _

“I have to go,” Her words ran together. “Bye, Andy.”

Andy watched her go, and he felt a cloud settle over his head. He wasn’t sure what he said wrong, but he had a feeling it might have been admitting that he liked her.

She didn’t talk to him for three full days. Three days, four hours, seventeen minutes, and roughly eight seconds. 

(Not that he was counting or anything.)

“Are you sure you don’t like  _ Ann?” _ Her voice was bitter. “Ann is nice, and good, and smart, and pretty. She’s real, she doesn’t… She’s not… Don’t you want a  _ real _ girl, Andy? That’s easy. I’m a bitch, and I try too hard, and I think that Ann deserves you more than I do.”

Andy frowned. “April.” His voice was soft. “I didn’t say I think I like Ann. I said I think I like  _ you.” _

“But being with Ann is so much easier. Don’t you get that? I’m a mess, Andy, I am.”

Andy watched her, quietly. She spoke with a sort of elegance, even though her voice was cracking and thick with tears. It went lower. She wasn’t trying. He watched her. 

“Aren’t you gonna say something?” She laughed bitterly, wiping away the tears forming in her eyes. “Nevermind.”

“No,” He objected, but quickly realized he didn’t have a direction. “April, I think I like you.”

“And I think you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into.” 

“I might not, but I want to.” Andy realized he's an idiot, sometimes. But he didn't think this qualified as a stupid decision on his part. 

“You like girls,” April pointed out. “I'm not a real girl.”

“I like girls,” Andy agreed. “You're a girl. I like  _ you.” _

“God,  _ Andy,” _ She said his name the way she always said it when she was annoyed, but not-quite-too-annoyed. A smile tugged on her lips. “You’re such an idiot.”

It took Andy a while to realize she never answered him.

So he tried again, about a week later. She’d been ignoring him, trying to get away from him at any chance. But he caught her.

“Will you just stop and listen to me?” He walked after her.

“No.”

“Fine.” Andy scrunched up his nose. “I don’t wanna talk to you anyways.” He paused and let a smile crawl on his face. “Reverse psychiatry.”

April huffed. “Fine. What?” It was a question, he was sure of it, but it didn’t really sound like one. She was… incredibly annoyed. 

“I like you.” It was obvious that he thought about what he was going to say, and his eyes darted over April’s face as he tried to study the equations running in her eyes. “In a… y’know… romantical kinda way.”

“You do?” April raised an eyebrow.

“Yes. Do you…” He bit his lip, pointing a finger to his own chest. “Like me?”

“Yes,” April spoke without a moment’s hesitation.

Andy felt a laugh bubble through his lips, and he held his hand up for a high five that she returned weakly. “So then, perhaps… Shall we go out this evening?”   
  
April smiled, and then her expression darkened. She frowned. “No.” Andy felt the simple word punch him in the gut, and his heart dropped to his stomach. “I don’t think we should see each other.”

Andy sighed. “Damn it. Is it because you’re twenty-one? And I’m twenty-nine?”

“No.” April looked at him like he was crazy, and he thought he might be. “I don’t… care about that.” She hesitated. “It’s because, whenever I see you talk to Ann, or… talk about Ann… I feel like you still have feelings for her.”

“What? No! I don’t! But I don’t!” Andy was grasping at straws, because he  _ didn’t. _ Ann was nice. Ann was easy. Ann was funny and Ann was smart.

But Ann wasn’t April, and therefore she wasn’t what he wanted. Not anymore. 

“Really,” He pushed. “I don’t.”

“Well I think you do,” April insisted. Andy gaped at her. “So… that’s a problem for me.

Andy had learned not to question her too much by then, so he left. He played a show, ‘cause he had to. He crashed on Leslie’s couch and when he woke up, his chest hurt like a motherfucker. But he went to work anyways.

Andy, like the idiot he was, pressed a kiss to Ann’s lips without thinking. It was a stupid move, on his part. He knew that. But he needed  _ something _ . So he kissed Ann, and she ran her fingers under his shirt and pressed down a little too hard on his side, and he flinched away. Pink lipstick stained his lips just a shade lighter.

“Andy,” Ann started, soft, giving an exasperated sigh. But Andy could tell she didn’t know where she was going with it. 

Andy shook his head. “No. Don’t say anything. I’m an idiot, I know, but I  _ need _ this--”

“ _ Andy _ ,” Ann repeated, but it was sharp, and Andy felt himself flinch again. “You can’t just kiss me whenever you feel sorry for yourself! And that's only half the problem here! Jesus  _ Christ, _ Andy Dwyer.”

“Half…” Andy’s sentence disappeared into the air, and then he pulled Ann close again and kissed her -- he needed to feel something. And Ann was nice. Nice, good, easy, and simple. 

Ann kissed back this time, but she ran her hands up his shirt again and he grew tense, too tense. She sighed against his lips and pulled away. “Go home, Andy. Take your binder off.”

Andy grimaced and glanced around out of habit to make sure nobody was listening in. Then, he sighed and turned on his heel. He could feel Ann frowning behind him.

Andy’s chest ached. He wasn’t stupid, and he knew to take his binder off. It was just that sometimes he didn’t  _ want _ to, and nobody should have to do things they don’t want to do. Wasn’t that common knowledge?

Ann asked him to do it, though, so he pulled off his binder and immediate relief swept over him. He slumped over, sweaty and  _ sticky _ , and winced. 

Ann was right. She always was. And Andy was always wrong. It was how their relationship always worked out.

He pulled his biggest sweatshirt over his head -- obnoxious and bright pink -- and trudged to Ann’s house. When he got there, he leant against the outside of the wall near the door and knocked. “Ann?”

Ann’s door swung open and she stared at him with her hip cocked to the side, as if she… she immediately knew why he was there. “You’re really gonna come to me for this?”

Andy sighed and tried to study her face, gears turning behind his eyes. He frowned, looked for words, and then admitted: “You’re the only person I’ve ever come to for this.”

Ann’s eyes softened.

“Well,” She finally said. “Come inside, then. Take off your shirt. You know the drill.”

He did know the drill. He sat down on the couch, winced when his knees hit his chest, and waited for Ann. 

She scolded him, as always. Then she patched him up. Scolded him again, until her words were drilled into his brain. Pressed a kiss to the top of his head and told him to go home. 

He always listened to Ann. No matter what she said. It couldn’t have been healthy, not in the slightest, but that was alright.

Going to work without his binder was a terrible thought. Andy almost stayed home.

But he had to convince April he didn’t love Ann, which was a lot harder than he originally thought considering all the times that he kissed her.

Ann checked on him early in the morning. She made sure he wasn’t wearing his binder and gave him a ride to work.

Andy’s sweatshirt was baggy enough, he thought, but the shirt underneath it didn’t quite do the trick. And it was summer, it was  _ hot. _

He could make due, though. He could handle it.

“I saw Ann drop you off,” April said. Monotone. There was hurt in her eyes.

“Yeah.” Andy sounded bashful, at least, he thought he did. “She came to check up on me this morning and then gave me a ride. I got… hurt.”

“You got hurt?” There was a hint of concern in her voice. 

Andy nodded. “Yeah. I’m fine, though.”

April nodded back. Her legs hung off her chair. After a while, she finally spoke up. “You… you swear you don’t love her?”

Andy tensed up. He didn’t love Ann, not anymore. But he had kissed her. “I…” He tried to find the right way to phrase it. “I don’t love her. I’ve… I’ve kissed her, since we broke up. But not because I love her. Because I need to feel something. And I like to imagine it’s you instead.” He paused. “Is that weird? That sounds weird.”

“That’s weird, Andy,” April confirmed. She studied his face, and Andy had never been more thankful for someone to be searching for something in his face. “And it sounds like you still love her.”

“But I don’t.” He sighed. “I don’t, I’m just needy, and I can’t have you apparently. So I need someone, something. And she’s the only person there. She’s angry with me for that."

“Why did she help you, then? When you were hurt.” April was looking for something that wasn’t there -- like she was scared. “Why didn’t you just go to a different doctor?”

“April.” Andy stared at her, incredulous. “You do know how crazy that sounds, right? And it was… a bit of a personal issue, and she’s dealt with it before--“

“If you don’t love her--“ April cut him off, voice shaking. “If you don’t love her, if you like me. You’ll tell me what it is.”

Nerves crawled up Andy’s back, but he agreed. He grabbed her hand loosely and dragged her to an empty office. His chest rose and fell quickly, ragged and uneven.

“There’s not a lot of people who know about this,” He said softly. “And I shouldn’t be nervous to tell you, but somehow I still am.”

April’s eyes softened, but she didn’t say anything. She just nodded for him to continue.

Andy was never good with words. So he pulled off his big, obnoxious pink hoodie and cringed at the way the fabric of the shirt beneath is dragged along his skin, too tight. It outlined his every flaw, every wrong curve. 

April just… stared.

“I’m sweaty,” Andy laughed weakly, his voice cracking. “It’s hot out today.”

April stared more, and the silence was thick and tense and-- 

She ran and hugged him, her arms wrapped around him tighter than he’d ever been hugged before. She buried her face in his neck and held him like she was scared she’d never see him again.

“Sorry,” She mumbled against his skin. “I’m sorry. I just-- I’m so scared of relationships, Andy. Because...”

She faltered.

It took a moment for Andy to break the silence. 

“Me too,” He said. “I’ve…” His voice cracked, and he shook his head. “Me too.”

They didn’t talk for the rest of the day, when each went back to their respective jobs. But Andy sometimes caught April’s eye as she walked past, and she would smile.

That’s when Andy was sure that he would be okay.

_ {fin} _


End file.
